The bar was set high when Ylioppilaskunnan Soittajat introduced their new conductor, David Searle. On the program were works that are heard mainly in professional orchestral concerts, but are not always professionally executed. However, the ambition of the collection of enthusiasts in YS more than sufficed.
American-born Searle trained in the Sibelius Academy conducting class. His conducting contains authority and, most importantly, this transmits to the orchestra's playing. One can conclude from the high level of playing that there is a trust between the new conductor and the orchestra born during an assiduous rehearsal process.
YS played colorfully and cleanly in Igor Stravinsky's Firebird Suite and Giuseppe Verdi's Overture to La Forza del Destino. Some individual executions were somewhat unsure and entrances were late in places, but, as a whole, the orchestra's playing rolled fluently along.
An additional challenge to the Firebird, came in the form of Alban Berg's Violin Concerto. In this work the orchestra also performed convincingly, with Berg's abstract atonality presenting no particular problems. Soloist Antti Tikkanen was in his element in the concerto's introverted melancholia and his interpretation was convincingly musical. Tikkanen's violin sang richly and the precision of his playing was enjoyable.
Samuli Tiikkaja